Les Rues des Refusés' Blanche Slate

A tagger and a mountie face off in Posterchild's piece, "Off the Wall," from last year's Rues des Refusés. Photo by Posterchild.

For the greater part of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of those artists whose work was rejected for exhibition in the prestigious Paris Salon displayed them in the Salon des Refusés, an exhibition that would eventually become at least as famous and as well-respected as the Salon itself. For the second year in a row, Toronto's Nuit Blanche will have its own version: some of those artists either unable to or uninterested in having their work appear under the official banner of the city's largest arts night but who still want to exhibit their work that night anyway will have their pieces collected into "Les Rues des Refusés." Literally translated as "streets of rejects," "Refusés" is an alternate program of rogue exhibits, running alongside Nuit Blanche on the night of October 3 but totally unaffiliated with it.

Curated by Stephanie Avery, "Les Rues des Refusés" is to be, a little like Nuit Blanche itself, less a wholly cohesive set of thematically related pieces than it is an anything-goes collection of artsy stuff; "Projects," she explains, "can be anything and anywhere (preferably in and around the Nuit Blanche zones), from established venues to back alleys, from projections to poetry readings, from dance parties to anything your imagination can think up. The only criteria is a commitment to follow through."

At 2007's Nuit Blanche, Avery's approved exhibit, "Starry Night," simulated a night sky full of stars in Stanley Park. But in 2008, her idea to create "a large, interactive plasticine sculpture" that invited viewers to "sculpt whatever they wanted" so that "the more people sculpted, the more the piece would transform into a collaborative sculpture that represented the way we, as a whole as well as individually, interact with one another and influence our environment," was rejected. "Not that this was going to prevent me from participating," she says. "I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the enormous Nuit Blanche audience. I had an inkling I wasn't the only one."

As Avery sees it, "Refusés" resolves two issues (though it's not, she says, "an anti–Nuit Blanche"). First, the alternative program will help draw attention to the "slew of renegade art installations and performances that, while they would surely be seen by many people, would only be discovered by happenstance." The Nuit Blanche audience, after all, is one in search of art, one "much more receptive to creative happenings on this one night than any other night of the year." (Maybe a little too receptive: Avery's alternate piece in 2008 was a set of sketchbooks scattered throughout the zones, with "instructions on creating collaborative drawings" and drop-off locations for the books to be returned to when the night was over. None were.) Second, "Rues" exists outside of Nuit Blanche's "corporate presence." In 2007, Avery kept hearing from friends that that presence "was so overwhelming that it detracted from the art and the experience of Nuit Blanche." Avery happily concedes that the night's big-name Scotiabackers are a big part of what makes the night possible at all, but "Refusés," she says, "offer[s] audience members the option to experience a different side of Nuit Blanche."

Last year's "Refusés" ended up featuring exhibits like a collaborative marching band called "The Blanchetown Blanchers," and a collection of experimental films screened in Trinity Bellwoods by Sketch, an arts program for homeless young people. Then, Avery was the one hunting for exhibits and printing and distributing a handmade program herself; this year, she has a new website, Facebook and Twitter accounts (obviously), as well as the help of Sonya JF Barnett, the woman behind The Keyhole Sessions. Interested artists have until midnight on September 19 to embrace rejection and submit their installations for inclusion; the rest of us will get a chance to see the "Refusés" lineup closer to the beginning of October.